While I was confined in a high-security penitentiary, for example, I created a niche for myself by finding the right job. I worked in an office of the prison factory. My staff supervisor was a wonderful human being. She understood that I was striving to educate myself. Despite regulations of the prison system that blocked prisoners from reading or writing during the work day, she authorized me to study once I completed my assigned duties.

In many ways, that supervisor influenced who I am today. Because she provided a sanctuary, I was able to avoid the pressures that interfered with so many other prisoner adjustments. During the hours I spent at work, it was as if I were not in prison at all.

My supervisor’s relationship with me was personal. She treated me as a human being, as if I were a son or a younger brother. Her colleagues did not appreciate the special treatment she gave me, but she enough seniority that she could be indifferent to their influence. She was not interested in advancing her position, so she did not have to worry about evaluations from supervisors who said she coddled inmates. Newer or more ambitious staff members could not make such concessions.

I would not say my supervisor was truly dedicated to corrections. She was simply a nice human being, and she treated me with dignity and humanity. She was an exception to what I usually encountered, and she frequently expressed her disagreement with the policies of the penitentiary.

At a different stage of my confinement I served time under the leadership of a progressive warden. He believed in the power of incentives and encouraged prisoners to grow. He was very supportive of those in prison who prepared themselves for release; he created a culture within his prison that required staff members to do the same. Many staff rebelled. Three months after the warden retired, the staff quickly removed all incentives and turned the prison into a more oppressive environment that was consistent with other prisons in the federal system. Prisoners responded with a riot that caused more than $1 million in damages.

Administrators set the culture of every prison environment. They have a huge influence on prisoner adjustment patterns and on staff perceptions. Generally, I have not sensed much of an emphasis on corrections. Prisons are all about warehousing human beings. Those who take a personal interest in prisoners were the exceptions, and they were not well received by the system.

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In the parlance of the penitentiary, we generally understand an inmate as one who becomes a little bit too closely aligned with the institution and its rules. Inmates are quick to engage in conversation with staff members. It seems as if inmates suffer a bit from the Stockholm Syndrome, where they identify more with their captors than with others who share their captivity.

While I was confined in one penitentiary, for example, violence erupted with regularity. Alarm messages from control center went out to each guard’s radio. Upon hearing of the disturbance, the officers deserted their assigned posts to run as a pack toward the altercation. Those of us in prison saw the guards running from one area of the massive penitentiary to another several times each day.

Convicts and inmates would differ in their thoughts as they watched packs of guards running in the same direction. A common convict expression went along the lines of “please let them find a dead body.” While an inmate once confided to me, on the other hand, that he felt torn because he wanted to run with the guards to lend a hand.

Being a model inmate does not necessarily imply that he deliberately informs or “rats” on other prisoners to save himself. Yet inmates are known to “dry snitch” on activities rather than confront problems directly.

For example, inmates who don’t like another prisoner for one reason or another may send an anonymous note to staff members that describe misconduct or contraband hustles of the rival. Inmates who toady up to staff may inadvertently describe how hard they work while letting it slip that other prisoners on the detail don’t work hard enough.

The inmate strives to advance his standing by engaging in small talk with staff members. Inmates inquire about the staff member’s home life, chat about sports, show photographs of family members from home. The inmates are, in the eyes of administrators, the element they can count on within the penitentiary. Inmates don’t make waves and they help maintain order.

Convicts differ from inmates. Convicts may abide by the rules, but only because they want to avoid additional aggravations or frustrations. Yet if he believes breaking a rule would be in his interest, he will make his choice and live with the consequences. A convict would never cooperate with a staff member in some kind of diabolical deal to spare himself. Convicts have an air of defiance. He may suppress that defiance, though he feels it coursing through his veins.

A convict would never engage in small talk with a staff member. Convicts do not ask how the staff member passed his weekend, does not ask whether the staff member caught the game on television. A convict believes in the clear separation between those who walk around with rings of clattering keys, and those locked inside the boundaries. Convicts do not share food or photographs with staff members; they understand that staff members represent the institution. It is staff members who rifle through the property of prisoners. It is staff members who order the prisoners to strip naked for a body search. It is staff members who lock prisoners in segregation and cut off access to their family.

Upon reading these distinctions between the inmate and the convict, those who live outside the twisted world of the penitentiary may find themselves surprised as to which is a term of respect and which is a term of derision.

Administrators look upon those within prison boundaries as criminals. To some extent, staff members believe prisoners unworthy of the common humanity we all share. Prisoners are numbers to be counted and managed, as if inventory in a warehouse, or animals in a menagerie, incapable of redemption, not deserving of trust.

Staff members expect the inmate to whine, to tattle, to shift blame and play the victim. Inmates feel certain that others may belong in prison, yet in their personal situations, injustice prevailed. Although staff members may exploit the weakness in the inmate’s utter lack of character, neither bonds of genuine respect nor respect exist.

The convict may not receive the perks that inmates take for granted from staff members, yet the convict may earn respect. Provided the convict is not engaged in or suspected of wrongdoing, staff members will refrain from petty harassment or patronizing conversations. Staff members and convicts alike understand that a clear line exists. Provided no problems erupt, both parties stay on their side and strive to minimize interference with the customs or beliefs of the others.

After my more than 21 years of continuous imprisonment, some ask whether I identify as a convict or an inmate. The answer, for me, is neither. I am not beholden to any group within these boundaries that separate me. I am a man, a being of dignity and honor. I am an American, a citizen with allegiance to my wife and family. I reject both labels of convict and inmate, as I continue this odyssey, this long and arduous journey home. I describe more of that journey in My Literary Escape From Punishment.

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I do not think staff members as individuals relate to prisoners with a common humanity. Staff policies discourage them from interacting with prisoners on a personal level. The reason for this separation is that close interactions between inmates and staff can threaten the security of a prison environment. Security and preservation of the institution trumps the system’s concern for the inmate’s development. If the system had concerns about preparing inmates for law-abiding, contributory lives upon release, they would offer opportunities for inmates to earn freedom through merit. Instead, all that matters is the turning of calendar pages. The infrastructure inside generates a lot of friction and callousness and cynicism. I would not go so far as to write that staff members want to see inmate failure, though the policies of the system seem to discourage staff members from focusing on anything that would have to do with correcting behavior.

My term in prison began in 1987. I began serving my sentence inside the walls of a high-security penitentiary. After several years, I transferred to a medium-security prison. Then administrators transferred me to a low-security prison, where I was held for eight years. In 2003, administrators transferred me to a minimum-security camp, and I expect to remain in camp until my release, in 2012. After having served more than 21 years in prisons of every security level, I would conclude that very little correcting goes on. Prisons are more like human warehouses. Changes may come, but for now there does not seem to be a lot that would suggest to me that the system particularly “cares” about inmates. The allegiance that administrators show is to society. Through their myopic view, they create infrastructures that alienate prisoners. They limit access to education; they disrupt family ties; they extinguish hope; they punish rather than incentivize. As a consequence of such un-American policies, prisons breed failure as high recidivism rates show.

That is my perspective as a long-term prisoner. Through my writing, I hope to help others understand more about America’s prison system and urge reform.

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When I began serving my sentence in 1987, I didn’t know anything about confinement. I didn’t know the difference between jail and prison, and I certainly didn’t know anything about security levels. I began serving my term inside a high-security penitentiary. That was a volatile environment, as I’ve described in books I’ve written and articles available on www.criminal-indictment.com. Most new prisoners, however, serve their time inside less volatile prisons.

Despite the environment, I was able to serve my sentence inside the high-security penitentiary and inside lower-security prisons without a single physical altercation. Some prisoners are not so fortunate. Yet I would estimate that more often than not, prisoners can serve their time without violence. The choices a prisoner makes will have the most influence on his adjustment pattern.

In my case, I thought the essential choice was to work toward clearly defined goals. As a consequence of the goals I wanted to pursue, I knew that I had to minimize my exposure to situations that could disrupt my progress. To that end, I was courteous and respectful to other prisoners, though I was careful to minimize contact. I chose not to watch television with a group, not to play team sports, not to engage in any table games. I did not use drugs or drink, and I did not gamble. I gave the prison gangs a wide berth. Those decisions kept me away from a lot of activities that have the possibility of erupting in violence.

Despite the long sentence I was serving, I was willing to focus on how I would emerge from prison. That meant I had to accept a lot of solitude. In fact, I searched for niches within the penitentiary that would give me space alone. For example, I found a work assignment in an office. While I was working in that office, I was separated from the general population. I worked as many hours as possible there; when my duties were complete, I focused on my school work. Besides the office job, I volunteered to work as a suicide-watch companion. That job allowed me to spend several hours each day in the infirmary. For several years, the only time that I was in the general population of the prison was in the early morning, and I used that time to exercise alone.

By staying to myself and focusing on my goals, I felt as if I were in the penitentiary, but not of the penitentiary. I created a niche that allowed me to study and work toward goals without disruption or interference. Anyone who made the level of commitment could adjust in the same way. Most prisoners, however, struggle with confinement. When they adjust inappropriately by forming alliances with others, they sometimes invite disruptions and problems.

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Some of the men who are locked in ADX cells will serve the rest of their lives without much to stimulate their senses. Although many of the ADX prisoners have been convicted of crimes that other citizens would consider reprehensible, I do not doubt that the men inside of those cells miss being a part of humanity.

In high security prisons, conditions are more open than in the supermax. Yet prisoners inside those oppressive atmospheres live without hope. They serve long sentences, sometimes without any possibility for release. Since they cannot envision ways in which they can distinguish themselves in positive ways, some look for opportunities to distinguish themselves inside the twisted world of prison. They become more violent, or psychopathic. They cannot hope to play meaningful roles in the lives of their family or society. Consequently, they join cliques or gangs; they engage in hustles or try to narcotize themselves through the time. Some whose prior decisions forced them serve their sentences in high-security prisons miss the feeling of safety, or living without the thick pressure of evil that seems to pervade the penitentiary.

In both medium-security and low-security prisons, prisoners have a bit more hope. Many have release dates that they can at least grasp. The release date may stretch out for ten or twenty years, yet at least they can see a glimmer of hope. Prisoners in those institutions sometimes fight to hang on to memories of the lives they led prior to prison. They miss the world. They are not always ready to embrace the prison culture completely because they believe that something will change. They miss their families, their freedom, the ability to feel as if they are independent men.

In minimum-security camp, all prisoners are within 10 years of their release dates. The atmosphere is much less oppressive. Significant portions of the camp population are within weeks or months of release. With the rapid turnover in the camp population, prisoners miss their freedom. Yet they can see that it will come.

During the 21 years that I have served so far, I have missed all that others take for granted. Prison has become a part of me, yet I have never stopped working to prepare myself. I am determined to emerge successfully, unscathed by the experience. What I miss most is my wife. I want to kiss her and hold her and sleep with her and love her. I want her to feel proud of me, to let her know that she has been the inspiration for every breath I have taken through prison. I miss her touch, and I work daily to prove myself worthy of the love and sacrifices she so freely gives to me.

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